The Weekly Standard reserves the right to use your email for internal use only. Occasionally,
we may send you special offers or communications from carefully selected advertisers we believe may be of benefit to our subscribers.
Click the box to be included in these third party offers. We respect your privacy and will never rent or sell your email.

Of all the bizarre twists Campaign 2000 has taken, there is none so strange as the one that finds us on the rooftop of L'Ermitage hotel in Beverly Hills. The media have come to explore the possible presidential candidacy of Donald Trump, who has himself formed an exploratory committee, blanketed the talk shows, and threatened to spend $ 100 million to win not just the Reform party nomination, but "the whole megillah."

L'Ermitage is a magnet for studio junkets and celebrities convalescing after rhinoplasty. The hotel's suites run up to $ 3,800 per night, so demanding guests can expect amenities like personalized cell phones and 88-inch pool towels. It's what The Donald would call a "class facility," and he knows of what he speaks. Not only is Trump, in his own demure phraseology, "the biggest developer in the hottest city in the world," but his very pores emit class. In fact, he uses the word frequently -- as an adjective, not a noun. Thus, everything associated with him is classy, even unauthorized biographies, like The Really, Really Classy Donald Trump Quiz Book.

Standing on the panoramic rooftop next to the classy pool, reporters anticipate Trump's arrival for a press conference. While waiting, we help ourselves to the Purel hand-sanitizers that Trump aides have kindly set out in a fishbowl. The Donald thinks shaking hands is "barbaric" and unhygienic. Politics, however, is about compromise. Twenty yards away, a television crew sets up for an interview with actress Whoopi Goldberg. I have spent so much time talking to Trump's aides over the past week that I feel qualified to speak not only for them, but like them. So I approach the Goldberg camp, informing no one in particular, "Mr. Trump doesn't like to share the spotlight."